Renewing Lent

Personally, I sometimes get stuck with the idea that Lent is a time for soul-bashing. There’s all this talk about sin, fault, guilt, failings, punishment, anger, wrath, and eventually a few words about forgiveness. Perhaps it’s that we’ve come out of a grey winter. Maybe it’s the Puritanism, Calvinism, and Middle-Ages pietism in my background or in the prayerbook. 

But When I read Scripture and when I look at the early Church, I get a completely different picture. Lent is about renewal. When Jesus talks about “repentance,” he’s saying we need to change course, make an alteration in our understanding. Jesus is saying “Stop and revisit who God has made you. Remember the purposes for which God has called you.” When I read the Old Testament I see this is exactly what God wants most of The People of God – to stop and remember who they are. Once we know who we are, behavior follows naturally.

I’m reminded this Lent, just as the prophets reminded the Ancient Israelites, that life with God is not about offering the correct sacrifice, saying the right prayers, or even about doing all the right things. Neither Lent nor Christianity is just about the do’s and don’ts. Life with God, real true life worth living, is remembering that an incredibly loving and good God made us, and we were made to be just like God (made in God’s image).

Now that’s something worth stopping to remember! You and I are created to a be “a chip of the old block,” an apple that hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Remembering who we are – God’s people, God’s children, seeing ourselves with God’s eyes – restores our vision of ourselves and life. It isn’t guilt, contriteness, and soul-bashing that God wants.

God wants us. Again. That’s Lent.